Negotiation
by 33zero33
Summary: Beings from a parallel world need to negotiated with the Bleach cast. But they have a little problem getting the point across...


It was an early, lightness morning when it all began, a dark hour when only the many enigmatic sounds of the garbage truck doing who-knows-what can be heard and the innocents and not-so-innocents and downright evil dictators were all in bed, sound asleep, dreaming of a world much different from the one about them. Why start in an early morning? Because this writer experiences bouts of writer's block and needs to begin with a peaceful setting, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, we, the silent, observant watchers of this fantastic world that the great and revered Kubo Tite had created for us through pictures and squiggles that we as Americans understand to be Japanese, sit patiently and watch this world awaken. It is a fascinating thing indeed: surly teenagers screaming for ten more minutes of peace, annoying little children eating their sugary cereals before another fun, fun, fun day at school, fat middle-aged men looking forward to another day stuck in a windowless cubicle, prematurely aging women screaming at their children, and that couple down the street cussing each other out over laundry problems. Ah, such familiar sounds of city life. They could go on forever, a beautiful symphony of screeching and grumbling, music for the soul. But they end, as all beautiful things end. In this case, they all end abruptly, the causes of the sounds having their lower jaws hanging a good ten inches below the upper jaw, rendering them silent. And outstretched eyes of multiple colors (it really should be just black and brown with one or two pairs of blue, being a Japanese suburban area and all, but hey! it's manga!) stared overhead as the brightest, largest, greenest glow they had ever had the misfortune to set eyes on flew across that awakening sky, flew and flew and flew until it vanished into the horizon.

You and I both know it did no such thing, one because any fool knows the earth is round, therefore a horizon does not exist in the real world and two because I now tell you that it hovered above a certain Urahara Kisuke's shop before descending straight through the roof.

The inhabitants of said shop were, to put it nicely, asleep. To put it unnicely (yes, I know that's not a word because my Microsoft Word's spell check tells me so by use of an annoying bright red line) they were catching a few winks while conveniently avoiding their duty down at Kurosaki's clinic—that is cleaning up the great, long, boring, preachy climatic battle that had just taken place a few hours ago. Well, that was put to an abrupt stop. The bright green glow descended down and landed softly beside the futon in the middle of a cluttered room and out stepped a man about six feet tall with big spiky white hair (that alone made up for a foot of his height) and the largest scowl in the history of large scowls.

"Get up, Urahara Kisuke!" barked the man, delivering a few well-placed kicks at the dreaming slacker.

"Wuzzat?"

A mumble followed by a slow opening of the eyelids and then a loud "ow" as a boot connected with Urahara's stomach followed. Now, believe it or not, Urahara was once a dignified, proud member of the Sereitei, a captain in fact. And dignified, proud captains have a common habit of having their zanpakutos beside them at all times. What followed the rude entry of the intruder and the indignant response of Urahara toward the rude way he was awakened was a long, epic battle accompanied by a series of cusses and taunts. After which, the members of the household, now fully awake, distributed Band-Aids to the two combatants as they sat around the coffee table without any coffee.

"My name is Hitsugaya Toshiro," began the intruder, fixing a blue Band-Aid onto his forehead. "I come from-"

And that was about as far as he got in the aspect of introductions.

Through the howls and peals of laughter, we can barely make out an attempted explanation, so I will explain it in the so-called Hitsugaya's stead. Now see here, once upon a time, in the land before iPods and high speed internet this guy, whose name I don't remember, proposed an interesting theory: that there are parallel worlds. Through a long series of mathematics and scientific deductions, this brilliant guy came up with a theory that cannot be proven wrong: that there are parallel worlds, but we can't affect them and they can't affect us. Isn't it absolutely brilliant?

But see here, parallel worlds aren't parallel. I don't know why they're called parallel if they aren't parallel, but apparently they are named that. The reason takes a lot of math to explain and since most people read fanfictions for fun and not for scientific instruction, I'm going to skip it. Just take my word for it that parallel worlds aren't parallel.

So if you haven't figured it out, I'll spell it out for you: the Hitsugaya Toshiro guy is from a parallel world in which he is apparently much taller and much grumpier.

And after a number of backbreaking, painful methods, Toshiro the Taller managed to drag the cackling, howling, and doubling-over-with-laughter self-made scientist to his intended destination: that is the Kurosaki clinic.

"What are we doing here?" asked Urahara, finally beginning to deal with his newfound companion with a mature attitude.

"My superior told me to come to this place after having attained you and giving you a bare understanding of the circumstances at hand," came the cold reply.

"But you haven't given me any understanding."

"Exactly."

The door was flung open by Rude Toshiro and the sight within was one that no one who had ever opened a volume of Bleach could expect. Sitting along one side of the wall, many scowling and covered in wounds from the previous day's epic battle, were the captains and lieutenants of the Gotei 13. Next to them were what looked like warped versions of said captains and lieutenants. On the other side of the wall, calmly drinking coffee (they were all so sick of tea) were the infamous traitors and a few Espada. They were unguarded by any parallel counterparts because, ironically, the bad guys were the ones that were behaving in this little, homely scene. In the middle, master of the house were Kurosaki Isshin and Ichigo, the former catching up with his guests, the latter restrained by several of the parallel counterparts of the captains and lieutenants. And sitting in a juice stained chair, lifting his balding head above all else was a version of Yamamoto himself, dressed in a blue suit, smoking a cigar, and looking ridiculously like some character out of the Godfather.

"You have brought him here?" asked the old man.

"Yes, sir," was the curt reply from Hitsugaya the Taller's mouth.

"He understands?"

"No, sir. Could not hold subject's attention long enough, sir."

A heavy sigh issued forth, tainted by tobacco breath. "Very well. I shall explain to you all then."

"We get it," piped up Gin despite his evil, socially challenged boss' attempts to silence him. "And we don't care. Can we go now?"

"Silence!" roared the mafia-esque Yamamoto. "You don't go anywhere until I get to explain in full.

"Now we come from a parallel universe, one not so different from yours, as you can see from the faces of my subordinates. And we would have happily stayed in that world had not something drastic occurred in your world. Something big. Something huge. Something in need of us. That thing is…"

"Long story short they need help finding a guy."

The crowd turned toward the speaker and the parallel beings paled at the thought that someone had the gall, had the audacity to opening interrupt Yamamoto. A door opened and out stepped a short boy with bright silver hair and a huge gun (about twice his size) strapped to his back.

"Ichimaru Gin," he said by way of introduction. "They told me to stay out until they got things settled."

"So why didn't you?" growled the balding old man.

"Much more interesting this way. So, anyway, these guys want you to catch a guy about three inches taller than me with brown hair that he gels obsessively five times a day, prescription glasses that he's afraid to wear, and a nasally unattractive voice. I'm here to convince you to let the matter drop and go home. All in favor of my suggestion?"

"Gin, get the hell out of here," muttered Yamamoto through gritted teeth.

"What is he doing here?" snarled the Hitsugaya who had brought in Urahara.

"What's going on," demanded the other Yamamoto, reasserting his position as the supreme ruler—that is captain commander—of the whole Soul Society.

"He's a traitorous assassin here to persuade you all to his side," yelled the Soi Fon-like woman.

"She's a liar!" yelled the shorter Gin in defense. "They're the traitorous assassins. After all, it's a parallel world that we're from, right? So the chances that I'm the good guy are pretty high."

"Um, no, because it's you," muttered the Unohanas in unison.

"Come on. Listen to me. Trust me, you don't want to be on the same side as these guys. I mean, they're all cowards and such. Couldn't even chase me off. Had to convince me to stay outside until they were done briefing you."

"Shut up."

"Listen to me, okay? Don't listen to him."

"Yeah, listen to our boss."

"Wait, wait, you guys are on my corresponding guy's side right? You'll listen to me!"

"Trust me, even you guys don't want to listen to that lunatic."

"I'm not a lunatic. I'm a psychopath. There's a difference!"

And so they bickered on and on, not a single soul of whose attention the two sides were grabbing for understood the reason of their argument. Not a single soul was stupid enough to listen to any of them. And by the time the arguing ended, not a single soul was disposed to listen to anything anyone of them had to say. With the exception of Urahara and Ichigo of course. But that was just scientific curiosity and stoic stupidity. So that doesn't count.

End attempt one of negotiation.


End file.
